Olympic silver medalist Enni Rukajärvi returned to Finland on Sunday morning. Rukajärvi competed in snowboarding slopestyle, and won the first Finnish medal in the Sochi Olympics a week ago. The women's cross country relay team brought in the second silver medal on Saturday.
Rukajärvi's home town of Kuusamo, in the north-east of the country, was ready to give her 'whatever she wanted' as a reward for her medal, according to mayor Timo Halonen. The traditional gift for sporting heroes is a plot of land on which to build a house, but slopestyle star Rukajärvi does not pine for such an arrangement, asking instead for 'pure nature'.
"That's enough for me," she told reporters gathered at Helsinki-Vantaa airport to welcome her.
In other Sochi news, Sweden took gold in the 4 x 10 km men’s relay – as it did in Saturday’s ladies’ relay. After a good start, the Finnish team finished sixth.
The Finns were level with Sweden until the third leg, when Lari Lehtonen dropped several places. He fell away from the leading pack, leaving Russia to take silver and France to pick up bronze. Finland's anchor Matti Heikkinen pulled one place back to finish sixth.
Räty retires
On Saturday the goaltender of the Finnish women's hockey team, Noora Räty, announced her retirement from the sport. Her team are out of medal contention. In a note posted on Twitter, Räty said she yearned for a challenge, and to make a living as a professional, and that she could not envisage that happening in the women's game.
"I'm done living from hand to mouth and it's time to start building wealth and thinking about my future," wrote the 24-year-old.
The Russian league is the only professional women's competition in the world right now, and Räty said she does not regard that as sufficiently competitive. She does, however, hope that a men's team somewhere will give her a chance to prove her worth.
Finland's men's hockey team plays Canada at 19:00 Finnish time tonight in their final group game of the tournament. Whichever team wins that game will head straight to the quarter-finals, while the loser faces an additional match to qualify. The game will be streamed live on Yle Areena.